Comment by rck

Comment by rck 15 hours ago

Before you read this, it's worth your time to check out Haraway's Wikipedia page. The criticism section sums things up nicely:

Haraway's work has been criticized for being "methodologically vague" and using noticeably opaque language that is "sometimes concealing in an apparently deliberate way". Several reviewers have argued that her understanding of the scientific method is questionable, and that her explorations of epistemology at times leave her texts virtually meaning-free.

This manifesto is exactly the kind of nonsense that led Alan Sokal to send his fake paper to Social Text. Essays like this should come with a Surgeon General's warning: this writing may be amusing, but if you take it seriously it will rot your brain.

Cheer2171 11 hours ago

> at times leave her texts virtually meaning-free.

This statement makes no sense. What is the methodology these reviewers used such that they can determine how much meaning is in a text? And what is the difference between a text that is "virtually" meaning-free and 100% meaning-free with no modifier? What is the threshold for a text to have an epsilon of meaning? I'm sure those reviews came with p-values.

I might say that those reviewers' understanding of continental philosophy is questionable and at times leave their texts virtually meaning-free.

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Cheer2171 11 hours ago

> methodologically vague

This criticism shows the ignorance of those who made it. This isn't a scientific empirical study, it is humanistic philosophy in the continental tradition. Nietzsche and Camus didn't have a methodology either.

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bbor 14 hours ago

Out of curiosity: what kind of philosophy do you like? Are you open to any psychoanalytic or marxist methods, if executed with enough scientific rigor? Honest question. I'm guessing basically all of HN agrees with you, so no offense intended!

TBF, AFAIR Sokal was criticizing Literary Criticism, not philosophy. I guess she does invoke a few science fiction stories here so the line is blurred, but its clearly instrumental. Namely for this purpose:

  Haraway uses the cyborg metaphor to explain how fundamental contradictions in feminist theory and identity should be conjoined, rather than resolved, similar to the fusion of machine and organism in cyborgs. The manifesto is also an important feminist critique of capitalism by revealing how men have exploited women's reproduction labor, providing a barrier for women to reach full equality in the labor market.

Which IMO is far from meaning-free! Also in her defense, literally all of the linked criticisms are about one book, Primate Visions. The first one isn't a criticism at all if you actually click the link, other than in the Kantian (non-pejorative) sense. The second one is by a primatologist who's offended and seems... well, I guess I'd have to read the book, but I'm dubious of the claims that Harroway endorses "relativism" or that "Marxism and feminism are never in doubt". The third one appears to be inaccessible / in Japanese (??) so no comments there.

Sorry, I've been a die hard fan of her for the past 30 minutes, as you can probably tell! So I'm more than a bit biased.

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